Creamy Slow Cooked Pork Casserole – perfect comfort food!
This is my kind of Friday night dinner when it’s been raining and miserable all day and you just want something really tasty to warm you up from the inside.
I’d contentedly scoff every bit of this dish, but that sauce over mashed potatoes? Yes, I could eat that for the rest of my life and not get bored.
The meat is browned and then slow cooked with stock and cider until lovely and tender. I like to chuck a few veggies in – just to make it a little bit healthier, and then it’s served on creamy mashed potatoes, and finished off with crispy fried bacon lardons or pancetta.
Sometimes referred to as Somerset Pork casserole (this is generally made using a dry Somerset cider, and with the addition of apples in the sauce) or Normandy Pork (made using french cider or brandy, apples, crème fraîche and bacon lardons, sometimes dijon mustard too), I like to pick a few flavours from both. So for me it’s:
- Dry cider (alcoholic version)
- Cream rather than crème fraîche (sometimes crème fraîche can split, so I prefer to use cream – make sure it’s double/heavy cream though – the higher the fat content, the less likely it is to split.)
- Crispy bacon lardons – Often these are crisped up, then cooked in the casserole with the pork, but I prefer to sprinkle them on at the end so they retain all the crispy saltiness.
- I sometimes make it with apple slices. If you do, just add them for the last 15-20 minutes of cooking so they don’t go mushy.
This Creamy Slow Cooked Pork Casserole is a really good meal to make ahead and then reheat later. It’s also great when you’re cooking for lots of people – a large batch that everyone can spoon out onto their plates is ideal. Plus it’s easily made gluten free too.
The Creamy Slow Cooked Pork Casserole Recipe:
Creamy Slow Cooked Pork Casserole
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil
- 500 g diced pork
- ¼ tsp salt
- ¼ tsp ground black pepper
- ¼ tsp celery salt optional – I find it adds a nice savoury flavour
- 1 onion peeled and chopped
- 12 baby mushrooms chopped in half
- 2 carrots peeled and chopped
- 250 ml dry cider (hard cider if you're in the USA) (usually gluten free, but best to check)
- 420 ml chicken or vegetable stock (water plus 2 stock cubes is fine, or use 2 tsp bouillon for gluten free)
- ½ tsp dried thyme
- 150 g bacon lardons or chopped streaky bacon
- 1 tbsp cornflour cornstarch mixed with 3 tbsp cold water
- 60 ml double (heavy) cream
- 2 tbsp freshly chopped parsley
To Serve
- Mashed potatoes
- Steamed kale or other green veg
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 170C/325F.
- Heat 1 1/2 tbsp of the vegetable oil in a large casserole dish until hot. Add the pork, salt, pepper and celery salt and brown on all sides - it should take around 6-8 minutes.
- Turn the heat down to medium and add in the onion. Cooked for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally until the onion softens.
- Add the mushrooms and cook for a further two minutes, then add the carrots, cider, stock and dried thyme. Turn up the heat and bring to the boil. Stir and scrape up any bits than may have stuck to the bottom of the pan. Place a lid on the pan, and place in the oven for 2 1/2 to 3 hours*, until the pork flakes apart when you press it with a fork. Check a couple of times during the last hour of cooking and add a splash of water or stock if it's starting to look a little dry.
- Just before the casserole comes out of the oven, heat the remaining 1/2 tbsp oil in a frying pan and cook the bacon lardons until crispy. Turn off the heat.
- Remove the casserole from the oven and stir in the cornstarch and water mixture to thicken, then stir in the cream. Taste and season with a little more salt and pepper if needed. Sprinkle on the bacon lardons.
- Serve with green veg on top of mashed potatoes. Sprinkle on a little chopped parsley before serving.
Recipe Notes
Nutritional Information
Equipment:
In order to make this Creamy Slow Cooked Pork Casserole recipe you will need:
- A good Kitchen knife. I have recently bought this Dalstrong one and love it.
- Chopping Board
- Casserole pan
- Measuring Spoons
- A frying pan/skillet
- Wooden or Silicon Coated Spoons. We have just bought these and love them.
- Potato Ricer HINT: Using a potato ricer makes the smoothest mash potato you will every taste. I recommend getting one!
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Helen Richards says
April 12, 2019 at 6:12 pmI’ve now made this dish five times … it’s my go to easy weekend recipe. It’s so TASTY 😋
Jenni says
August 16, 2019 at 12:45 amWhat do you mean by cider for this recipe ? I put a bit of apple cider vinegar but certainly not the 250 mls like recipe said. It’s cooking now
Nicky Corbishley says
August 19, 2019 at 5:16 pmHi Jenni – sorry we’ve been on holiday. The recipe is regular alcoholic cider. Are you in the US? I think they call it hard cider over there. I’ll update the recipe to make that clear to anyone else from the US.
Lorna says
February 9, 2019 at 2:54 pmLove this recipe. Very easy and extremely tasty😀
Mike Garrard says
January 31, 2019 at 9:01 amMade this yesterday using the slow-cook method. Not sure if the sauce thickened as much as it should have, However, it tasted lovely and went down well with the whole family (includes an elderly Mum and two teenage boys), which can’t be a bad thing!!
I served it with mash and shredded cabbage and they all cleared the plate. Even wanted more.
This will be marked as a favourite for us.
Nigel King says
December 6, 2018 at 8:33 pmA great recipe which worked very well for 4 servings. I quadrupled ingredients for 16 servings but the result although still very tasty had far too much liquid. Can you advise best way to adapt recipe from 4 to 16 servings please ?
Nicky Corbishley says
February 7, 2019 at 1:46 pmHi Nigel, so glad you enjoyed it!
I would go with 1200mls of stock (rather than quadrupling to 1680mls), but then keep everything else the same. The cornstarch slurry added at the end should help thicken it up so it’s not too liquidy. Since you’re going to be adding more cornstarch slurry, I would suggest stirring it in a splash at a time until the sauce has thickened.
Sandra says
April 14, 2018 at 11:22 amHello,
Can I substitute cider with anything else? I work In outback and we have only beers and cooking wines in here :/ or can I leave the cider out?
Chris Corbishley says
May 2, 2018 at 11:46 amHI Sandra,
This is a difficult one as i haven’t tried this dish without the cider. You could try substituting the 250ml cider for 125ml of white wine and also increasing the stock by an additional 125ml.
If you do give it a try, please let me know how you get on.
Many Thanks
Chris & Nicky
Jenni says
August 17, 2019 at 12:03 amI used a splash of apple cider vinegar by mistake, added a bit of brown sugar to balance the tart and ended up tasting like veal masala
Jo says
March 7, 2018 at 2:26 pmHi, thanks for this recipe. Just wondering which cut of pork you would recommend using?
Jenni says
August 17, 2019 at 12:00 amI used pork fillet cause was on special, was delish
Janice Kington says
February 25, 2018 at 6:49 pmWe have just had this for our tea tonight. Wow it was really tasty.. I have half of it ready to Freeze but did not put the cream in that. I really recommend this dish.
Kathryn Clayton says
February 20, 2018 at 8:21 pmLove this pork dish, such a wonderful family comforting winter dish. Great crowd pleaser.
Sheila says
August 11, 2017 at 12:19 pmMade this recently but omitted the cream as I was freezing for quick midweek meals which unfortunately also meant it wasn’t as thick a sauce as I presume it should have been.
Not sure if it would be ok to freeze with the cream, does anyone know?.
Nicky Corbishley says
August 11, 2017 at 2:41 pmHi Shelia, I’ve tried freezing with cream in an it worked fine after heating through. However the results can be different if you heat over to high a heat or if you’re not using heavy cream.
I’d suggest omitting the cream for freezing to be on the safe side, then adding it later, when reheating the meal.
If the sauce is a little runny, sometimes I mix 1 tsp of cornstarch with 3 tsp of cold water and stir it through to thicken the sauce up.
Hope that helps!
Sheila says
August 11, 2017 at 3:32 pmMany thanks, will either add cream or cornstarch when reheating as suggested, thanks.
Susanna Timney says
March 15, 2017 at 9:50 amI made this and it was delicious! My husband said it was the best porn dish he has ever had!
swmillardackred says
October 1, 2017 at 5:53 pmGood lord, I’ve been cooking this for the last five hours and now I find out it’s a ‘porn dish’. I’ve had to throw the whole thing out before father saw.
Nicky Corbishley says
October 2, 2017 at 1:50 pmHi Simon, sorry, I’m not sure what you mean. I’ve cooked this dish many times, and it always turns out great. Did you change anything in the ingredients or cooking process? Perhaps we can figure out where it went wrong for you.